What type of study is this?

This is a Contrastive Analysis study.

September 10, 2025

Undirected/Directed-Utterance Sequences in Japanese, Korean, and English: A Contrastive Analysis

Key Points

Japanese shows unique morphosyntactic patterns in monologic speech compared to Korean and English, emphasizing prefabricated expressions.
In self-referential contexts, Japanese typically forbids second-person pronouns for self-blaming or self-encouraging utterances, unlike Korean and English.
The study employs a contrastive analysis approach, examining typological and grammatical perspectives of speech across three languages.
These findings indicate inherent distinctions in how monologic and other-directed speech are structured in Japanese, suggesting unique linguistic traits.

Abstract

This study explores morphosyntactic variations in monologic speech across Japanese, Korean, and English, with particular focus on shifts from monologic to other-directed utterances. From typological and grammatical perspectives, Japanese and Korean are generally considered to be more analogous to each other than to English. Nevertheless, Japanese exhibits a notable contrast with both Korean and English in employing prepatterned or prefabricated expressions in monologic speech, which are distinct from those employed in corresponding interactional contexts. This divergence aligns with another cross-linguistic pattern: in utterances expressing self-blame or self-encouragement, Japanese generally disallows second-person pronouns to refer to the monologic speaker, whereas both Korean and English readily permit such self-reference. These findings suggest that Japanese can be best characterized as inherently distinguishing between monologic speech (i.e., undirected and self-directed) and other-directed speech (i.e., dialogic or interactive) and requiring speakers to adopt distinct morphosyntactic prepatterned or prefabricated expressions accordingly.

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